reminiscence

Its already been four years. Time flies , doesn’t it? Ndp always bring back fond memories. I guess its cause happy memories tend to stick with you for a longer time.

730 on a sat morning, at yio chu kang mrt. Breakfast of that toasted bread and iced milo at the 2sir canteen. Water breaks that allowed us to buy the chrysanthemum tea from the drink stall, lasting for eternity until someone finally realizes and shout “fall in”. then it would take about 10 mins more to get everything started. 20 mins later, it was another water break. It was also the only time when there were afternoon naps after lunch. Being able to sleep in air con bunks in 245. subsequently stinking up the entire bunk. Fighting of blankets at night when its cold hahaha. Of course, bio-ing the chio jc cheerleaders became our favourite pastime.

Then there were the sweat, the tears. Sweat standing under de midday sun, doing one run after another. The words we hated most became “form up” .sacrificing the entire Saturday, sometimes Sundays for this stupid event that lasted all of 6 mins. Sacrificing literally the entire march and june vacations. Doing rotation and jumbo until arm hit until become blue black. Doing pushups in grass so long that when we went down, we couldn’t be seen. Trying to force stale Kentucky fried chicken down our throats under the full force of the sun, and covered from head to toe in black, without drinks. Also, getting to know the only warm up that would leave everyone’s arms trembling. The only warm up that people have trouble completing. The tears, when you cock up during a show, when the pyrotechnics cannot come out, when you realize that you are a reserve. When you realize you just lost your friend’s discman haha.

The characters. . Cockanathan and his motley crew of jokers, the instructors who are slacker den us. Actually we were all slackers, including mr “monkey see monkey do” choo. Haha. A certain tall gal from KC. Haha. A certain cousin who asked everyone to quit cuz its supposedly damn xiong. And of course who could forget our beloved capt low with his marvelous vocabulary? The only one who came near was the sgt leow. anyway his quotable quote will always remain with us. Haha. “you think you’re the biggest fuck on earth? Fuck you, you understand not?” and of course, we still owe him 850 pushups. Sadness.

The spirit is immense. People from all walks of life talk to one another. You see incredible things like handphones more light bulbs than traffic light. And much brighter of course. You see people who keep fringes behind their ear. You see people who smoke in uniform, smoke at night. Chain-Smoke la basically. And don’t die from it, only become more stupid. Cuz their dari kanan bilang dunno how to count one. Bwahaha. Our favourite song was the ncc song, and we could sing it much louder than some loser UDIs from air. We only managed a solid bang once, at safti. And the only time we marched in coordination without someone cocking around was during the performance itself.

We trained together, kena sunburnt together, makan together, sleep together, caogeng together, sang ncc song together. Count arms umpteen times together because some idiot dunno how to count, slacked together, rebelled against certain CLTs together, bullied the rest together. created new cheers together, took bus together, slack at national stadium for 5 hours together. Bio the chio jc cheerleaders in their miniskirts together. Drink each others saliva from the jerry can together. Burnt our holidays together. And thus,

Together, we are NCC PRECISION DRILL SQUAD 2001.

Wah it’s a hell long and boring entry. Don’t know how many people will read this. Think only guan wld understand wad im tokin bout. But at least I can be sure that the pds memory wld be etched in our hearts for a long long time. All 160 of us. Plus maybe the instructors and capt low.

It’s a typical tropical paradise…